Daughter chooses exN over mom

[sea storm]

The difficulties of dealing with a narcissistic or psychopathic ex go on forever it seems. Each big life event creates first a huge undertow that threatens to nearly drown me, followed by thunder claps, whirlpools and hopelessness until I finally surrender and realize that I cannot change how this has been lived out. All that sounds so vague and general. At least i am talking about it when all I want to do is stay in bed or sit in the garden stunned.

My beloved daughter had a baby a few months ago. I was so happy she was pregnant after trying for several years. When the baby was born I went to visit. I visited after her stepmom had been there for 10 days accompanied by her sister.
By the time I got there I think the new parents were tired of visitors. I don't know. All I know is that I was not welcome. I was confused and could not comprehend this. My daughter said that she felt closer to her stepmother. This came as a shock.
I told my daughter that I felt hurt that stepmom came first.

This situation is aweful. My ex husband and father of our child is a serious narcissist and is basically a criminal who has done very well financially. My daughter worships him.  His much younger wife worships him. He is a serious alcoholic and has drawn several people into dealing drugs and ruined their lives. They get caught and sent to prison but he remains free. His cousin died of an overdose and his nephew commited suicide. There are huge secrets buried all over the place but the family looks so good in photographs. They are attractive, active, happy, gourmands, fine wine connoisseurs who live in beautiful houses.
I was too stupid to realize how deeply they have alienated me from my daughter.  This huge event, the birth, has brought it home to me. Recently, my daughter travelled across the country to visit. She spent the entire time with my ex and his family.  There were lots of pictures on Facebook showing how lovely it all was including a picture titled daddy lovefest.
My daughter told me I could drive down and she would spend the afternoon with me. She spent ten days at my ex" home.
She told me that I was a victim after I said that I felt hurt at not having more time with her. She went on and on about this victim thing and said victim with so much contempt.

For my ex and his family I am Banquo's ghost. It is like they have so much hatred for me and they have poisoned my daughter completely. I realize that now.  Before I would phone my daughter and we talked amiably several times a week. But that was a thin shell of icing. The real truth was that I mean very little to her. When I say that it hurts it makes her furious and she calls me a victim. Of course there is so much more to this but maybe someone can relate to it. I never thought that my precious daughter could be so alienated from me. Well, I was spellbound by her dad for years and thought he was heroic and the smartest guy on earth.  So i guess she thinks that too. It does not matter what he does, or how he makes his money. They snicker at it and think of him as a pirate or a  buccaneer. I met a guy who had tried heroin with my ex. He said that he first tried it with exN and was expected to be able to take care of himself but he got addicted. This was a good guy and he was ruined.

I don't want to say too much because I am afraid of the consequences.
On the surface my ex and his family look so good.  Being part of the clan gives access to rich, clever people without any cares. There is travel and lovely times at restaurents and summer by the lake.  I am not rich. I feel like a beaten dog right now.
I have just backed off. I am sick of it all. I can't change my daughter's heart. One psychologist said that she has a right and a need to know what the past was for me but she does not want to know.

There is such a big void in my life now.  I feel so sad.

Sea storm

[sea storm]

I am replying to myself.
Whoever heard of the offspring choosing the narcissist? I looked it up but there must not be any incidences of this. Being a mother is a huge part of my identity and my reason for being. It has gone terrible wrong. I blamed myself completely and for months was living with so much shame and guilt I could barely move. Gradually, I am using the philosophy of Al Anon to detach and stop trying to change things. I have distanced myself from my daughter and her contempt. My ex and his wife refused to communicate with me as my daughter was growing up even though we shared custody. Their reason for this is that I was crazy and therefore irrelevant.  I was working, going to school, getting good grades, being a single mom. This allowed them to dismiss me. Even if our child was sick there was no communication permitted. Pretty arrogant.

I feel like I am reliving the trauma of being involved with my ex again. I am stronger and wiser now. Nevertheless, the damage to our daughter is done.  I loved him and lived to regret it and now she continues to love him. It is like she does not have psychological insight even though she is doing a doctorate in psychology. How can this be?
Maybe you are thinking I must be a rotten parent and don't know it. I hope not.

Sea

[Ales2]

((((((((((Sea))))))))))))

I feel for you. I'm currently in a situation myself where the N is winning out - in my case my relatives seem to care more for my NMom and how she is doing than they do about me.  She's the saint, I'm the troublemaker.

There is no explanation - its a bizarre attraction (wanted to say seduction, but wanted to avoid using the word in a dad/daughter story) to Ns for some people who have just not been burned yet. I say YET. She may see it or she may not.  That said, its a weird dynamic, one that makes no sense, certainly not to those like us who already know and are affected by Nism.

I just spent the weekend watching many shows on OWN including the Ryan O'Neal - Tatum O'Neal show and was surprised at how Tatum, even going through therapy for her marriage to MacEnroe - an N with an anger problem, then getting sober, then getting divorced and yet she STILL wants a reconciliation or relationship with her NDad (who just like her ex-husband who has serious anger issues). All this self work - yet she is still strangely "addicted" to wanting something from him - even in the likelihood that it wont work out.   I guess my point is that there may no intellectual reason for her to want to be with an N - and lots of emotional reasons why she is part of his life. Its also very possible that the N has succeeded (sorry to say) in making you look bad   and building themselves up.

So sorry you are going through this. Positive, kind detachment (maybe cards and phone calls letting her know you are there when she needs you) and just working on your own life might be the best ways to deal with it. Its possible, something will initiate a reconciliation - until then, remain your kind, positive and cooperative self and the opportunity might come along.

((((Sea))) Hope things get better for you.

[Hopalong]

Oh, Sea, I am so very sorry.

You are doing a very important thing:

Gradually, I am using the philosophy of Al Anon to detach and stop trying to change things.

Sending you much simple courage to accept this hard hard thing you cannot change.

OTHER things in life may change her one day...but you must not stay in this grief forever.
And it is going you are working your way to accepting that you cannot change her.

Releasing her to her own learning has got to be so hard, but it is saving you.

with love and sympathy,

Hops

[sea storm]

Thanks Hops and Ales

I am so grateful for your replies. It is better to speak about it. Seems like the ripple affects go on and on. I was naive to think it was over and done with when I left my ex.  His rage and retribution have continued. Also I have acted like a crazy woman at times when I was frustrated beyond belief with dealing with his contempt and arrogance. I was vulnerable to the contempt and it sunk in and hurt me all these years. At last I am over that. He and his family can take their ghastly projections back because i am not their scapegoat anymore. Wearing that robe was horrible and I did not know what was going on. I believed it. Too bad.

Once I was in thrall with my ex and his family and it lasted for years. No wonder my daughter is in that place now. I have no choice but to let go and try to discover my inate goodness. Right now I feel dead but I refuse to give up on myself.

It is more painful to keep trying to break through all the enmeshment by making nice.

Lots of love to you guys and gynes,

Sea storm

[Hopalong]

Hi, Sea,

I thought of you when I read this today and it helped me, too.


http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/06/22/family.love.o/index.html?iref=obinsite

(I am thinking about various ways one can describe this kind of realization, since I
need to ponder them...

Somebody here, I think, said recently, "Love is not worry." I like this a lot.

I'm also thinking something like, "Love is not suffering.")

xo
Hops

[Izzy_*now*]

hi sea storm,

I can relate and also find the situation very confusing.

I left my daughter's father when she was 2½. For maybe the next 3 months she 'thought about Daddy' on occasion but not every day.

He was with us for a year when she was 7-8 and I made him leave again for not working, and taking up drinking again.

When she was 14 she asked if we could invite him to her Gr 8 Graduation, when she would be receiving 4 Awards. I said we could but he didn't have a car to come the distance.
She said a bus
I said he had no money
She said you have money
I said he would spend it on alcohol
She said you could buy him a ticket
i said that he could sell the ticket for cash ad buy alcohol.

It was a discussion, not an argument and one year later when she was 15 he completed suicide....drunk, jobless and penniless

She and I are now on the outs and she is 47.  In one of our email discussions she mentioned about fantasizing about her Dad, coming to see her, and bringing her a horse.

I suspected all along that she fantasized about him and that I meant nothing to her.

All the while he never sent Xmas gifts nor birthday gifts. I did what I could but I was disabled when she was 5. I saw to it that she had what was needed, but she swallowd a bottle of aspirin when she was 12. The Dr. called me and told me. I sat her down for a talk, and she said that it was my disability. (I cannot change that.)

I've always thought, since a nephew on her father's side gassed himself to death in the garage that it was because he was gay.. (d'ter wasn't yet born)...so any young kid old enough to realize what that could mean was likely confused over sexual identity.

She wrote to me in 2005, age 41 that she had another person inside her who was scratching and crawling to get out, and about the fear she was feeling. By now I didn't suspect lesbian (just a wild person who might want to  kill me) but she finally told me in Jan 2010, she was in a same sex-relationship.

Now that she told me and I accepted it with a lovely letter to her about how happy I was that she had finally found love, i no longer hear from her.

I suspect she wanted me to disown her for this but I will not!

She is in a cement box inside my head, along with my 3 granchildren, and they never get far enough out to ever bother me.....otherwise I might go crazy. I just live day by day, for me, and even if she pops into my thoughts.....she is 'nothing' anymore,....nothing that will depress me!

Perhaps I am weird, but I decided I had to survive, emotionally.....then I was hit by a car!

Geez---where the Hell is God these days????????

xx
Izzy

[sea storm]

Thank you for sharing your story with me. I am so sorry that happened to you. It is godawful. It is so disconcerting  that your daughter felt so bonded with a man who was nearly a stranger to her and he had many characteristics that would have made connection with him unfortunate. The parent who is associated with rejection seems to have such power over kids.

I admire your courage in going on. When I realized that I was not bonded with my daughter and that she considers her stepmom more of a mother I found it nearly impossible to grasp. My world is turned upside down.  She has bought the whole story from my ex about me being insane and a Victim.  There is no room for dialogue and all I get is name calling and rejection. I have to quit putting my head on the chopping block. Nothing I do is ok. and it just puts me in the place of begging for her attention. So this has to stop and I am building that box too. I NEVER thought it possible. The family drama and chaos has intensified with the birth of my grandchild. Instead of it being a wonderful experience, I am overwhelmed with her contempt for me.

For months I thought that I must deserve it because she is such a lovely person. I wore this projection and it was more than I could carry. There was no working through it. Just a wall of anger and contempt.

My heart goes out to you Izzy.  I can hardly walk because of arthritis and I cant help but think that part of her discomfort is because I am debilitated.  Some people just can't handle it but they also can't admit that they feel so uncomfortable around people with disabilities. This really sucks.

I hope you can love yourself because there are definitely things that are out of  our control. I am meditating, breathing and taking things very slowly. I was in denial about this but it is clear now.

Sea storm

[lighter]

SS:

You can't change how unfair things were/are.

You can't change how your daughter is dealing with it.

All you can change is how you react to the situation.

Wishing and hoping things were different is a painful loop, and it takes effort to get off that loop.

I hope you can turn away from the negative and find something that bring you joy to focus on.

Helping others.  Gardening.  Researching something meaningful.  Pulling all your best recipes together.  Organizing all your photos. 
Learning how to meditate in the traditional sense. 

The only thing you can change is you, and how you respond ((SS))

I think your daughter will eventually figure things out for herself.  The N's eventually behave like N's to everyone around them.

I'm sorry it hurts so much.
Lighter

[teartracks]

The N's eventually behave like N's to everyone around them.

Truer words were never spoken.  Everyone at the N's convenience becomes a pawn.  About the only thing you can do where ex husbaNd is concerned is watch as he self reveals to the point where daughter realizes the lie beneath his behavior.   Keep your heart and arms open for her when it happens.  The book, People of the Lie comes to mind.

tt

 

[sKePTiKal]

Sea,

I tried to write something before - but I was afraid you might take it in the wrong light; that it would just add pain. I don't want to do that, so please understand that I'm trying to help - not hurt. I'm not sure I could've taken it that way, when I was in your shoes, either.

There is another way to see this situation than just an either/or choice by your D... that leaves you feeling rejected for the ex who you know beyond a shadow of a doubt, is a hurtful and dangerous person. Your D is an adult now and she deserves the opportunity to get to know her father, make her own assessments of him, decide for herself... without feeling the need to "choose" one parent over the other. I say that from my experience of being a D in that position. You can trust that eventually he'll "out" himself. Ns always do. She might get hurt, herself... true. But if you don't shut her out of your heart, you can help comfort her and help her understand the "tricks of the N game" later. (My situation with my mom is quite different than this.)

As a mom, I have two experiences that shared, might be able to shed some light on your own experience. I let my D's live with my Ex, while they were still young. Because of my experience, having to "choose" one parent over the other, I felt an obligation to not deny them the opportunity to have a relationship with him. It didn't turn out well, I have to say. But we all lived through it and have gotten past it. I felt like a miserable failure as a mother at the time. Selfish as all get out, too. Guilty beyond belief. Hurt to the core of my being. Like you are feeling now, I felt they "chose" him over me. But that was just my feeling - it wasn't what was really taking place. All's well that ends well, right? We're still working on the "happy ending" but the fact is, both girls are stronger people for having been allowed the chance to explore, discover, and maintain their own boundaries with both of us and create a version of a relationship with him -- to care about him in their own way and establish their own boundaries with him without feeling responsible for me and how I feel; as if I'm going to fall apart because of it.

My girls are in their early 30's now; that all happened 20 years ago. One of the things I struggled with in T, was redefining what my role as "mom" consisted of now. Just like when they were little - each relationship is slightly different and each has their own sensitive zones, boundaries, etc. I needed to learn how to not "need to be needed" by my Ds... they weren't children anymore... our relationship, how we interacted, hadn't grown and evolved over time. I was stuck... and not letting go. And I felt like my whole identity would go up in a puff of smoke... if I wasn't the same old mom anymore. Once I started to shift my focus to taking care of me, instead of 24/7 worrying and ruminating about them... things changed for the better pretty quickly. And the interesting thing is, that it seems that some new "space" opened up for our relationship to change and grow, too. Their lives also started to seek a balance.

What they do with their Dad and how they feel about him -- is none of my business. The freedom they've had to connect with him, get to know him, make their own kind of peace between us - for themselves... has actually helped them understand why I divorced him in the first place. And it's helped them to grow some compassion, wisdom, and understanding that they can apply in their own relationships, too. And now, I think the girls and I are closer than ever... they don't need the "old mom"... and I've changed a bit... and they've grown... and we're still friends and enjoy being with each other.

I guess, this is my version of the "middle path", Sea. Yours will probably be a different combination... I do think, though, that no matter the age of the child, it's absolutely important to not see the situation in terms of choosing one parent over the other... even if those words are actually spoken... because later on, your D might see things quite differently than now. So, in the meantime, focus on you... and your life... and who you are now... and who you want to be in a year, 10, etc. It's the great gift of freedom, after single-momming for years... even though it might not feel like it inititally. It will be all right, Sea.


(((((((((((SEA)))))))))))))))